The present disclosure is generally related to image guided medical procedures.
In the field of surgery, imaging and imaging guidance is becoming a more significant component of clinical care, from diagnosis of disease, monitoring of the disease, planning of the surgical approach, guidance during the procedure and follow-up after the procedure is complete, or as part of a multi-faceted treatment approach.
Integration of imaging data in the surgical suite has become common-place for neurosurgery, where typically brain tumors are excised through an open craniotomy approach guided by imaging. The data that is used typically consists of CT scans with or without associated contrast (iodinated contrast), and MRI scans with or without associated contrast (gadolinium contrast). Systems provide a means to register the imaging data sets together, and registration methods to translate the three dimensional imaging space to the three dimensional space of the patient and tracking of instruments relative to the patient and the associate imaging data by way of an external hardware system such as a mechanical arm, or an RF or optical tracking device.